He has directed over 70 productions in college, community, repertory and commercial theater including the North American stage premiere of the classic "The Little Prince" by Antoine de St. Exupery in the outdoor amphitheatre at St. Andrews Benedictine Abbey in the California desert, “The Night of the Iguana", “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds", “The Caretaker", “Mother Earth”, "What the Butler Saw", "Inherit the Wind" and “All the King’s Men." Founding artistic director of the Summer Music Repertory where he directed three musicals, his productions of Shakespeare have been part of the Chapman, Utah, Oregon and New Jersey festivals.
Born in Cambridge (Galt), Ontario, Canada, he is a descendent of Sir Christopher Wren, the 17th century English architect, from whom he gets his pen name.
Warren John Deacon-Wren
BIO
He was a radio dj, newspaper and radio journalist, program director of a public television station, founding manager of the National Public Radio affiliate station in Orange County, California and director of the national radio poetry series "Earbook". His television directing credits include news, public affairs, documentaries, TV commercials and PSAs, corporate and music videos and he wrote and directed the feature film "Bike Fever". He taught broadcast news production, film history and criticism and screenwriting at Saddleback College, Irvine Valley College, California State University Fullerton and UC Irvine. At Servite High School, he taught English and Drama and at Harvard he studied Public Broadcast Management and as an adjunct instructor taught media copyright law.
Deacon-Wren is currently heard as a voice-over artist in broadcast and internet radio, commercials, documentaries and audio books and is a partner and Chief Creative Officer of newbijou mediawerks, a full service digital media production company in southern California. In a 20 year radio career, he worked at CKGR, Galt, Ontario, Canada, KFIL Santa Ana, KCIN Victorville, KWOW Pomona, KGGK Garden Grove, KFXM San Bernardino, KUTE Palmdale, KSBR MIssion Viejo, KOCM Newport Beach, KCKC San Bernardino, KFOX Long Beach.
Represented as a playwright by the legendary Audrey Wood as well as Helen Harvey in New York, and as a screenwriter by Ilse Lahn of the Paul Kohner Agency in Los Angeles, he is currently repped by Leroy Bobbitt of Bobbitt and Roberts in Los Angeles.
Deacon-Wren was Associate Artistic and Managing Director of South Coast Repertory where he directed Harold Pinter’s “The Birthday Party", “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder and “Feiffer's People", among others. He was founding Artistic Director of the experimental venue Open End Theater where his productions included “All the Lonely People", “What If” and “Adventures in a Paper Bag."
Three times awarded the prestigious MacDowell Colony Artists Fellowship for playwriting, Deacon-Wren's screenplays with co-writer Lupos Sobre-Vega include “Sign Language", “Sun Moon Stars", “January One" ,“I.D.", “Rock & Roll Radio” and "Two of Hearts" which won the Beverly Hills International and Triggerstreet Top Ten screenwriting contests and was recently published in paperback and e-book by Event Horizon Press.
He is the author of the stage plays “The New Bijou Soft Shoe," produced at Symphony Space, New York and the Odyssey Theater, Los Angeles (reviews) and “The Chair at the End of the Room," for which he won the National Repertory Theater award. He wrote the book for the musical play "Last Call at Oscar's Wild" and is co-author of the play “And Flights of Angels Sing Thee". He is also co-creator of two television series, “There Goes the Neighborhood” and “Street Time”